anniversaries

Media excitement today over the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall completely overshadows any commemoration of the much grimmer events that occurred fifty one years earlier in Austria & Germany.

Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass - on 9 November 1938 was one of many events that showed the world what would be the likely fate of the european jewish population over the next seven years.

Why nobody noticed, nobody cared, is maybe a question we should be addressing alongside the feverish studying of Hitler and the nazi party that forms such a central part of the history curriculum in schools these days.

What use learning to recognise a tyrant if you don't also learn how to resist one?